"Do you want me to come with you?" Lily asks, reading the note over my shoulder.
"No. I need to do this alone." I can see the hurt flash across her face and quickly add, "It's not that I don't want you there. But whatever he wants to talk about, it's probably going to involve things I can't explain yet. Things that are safer for you not to know."
She doesn't look happy about it but she nods anyway. "Okay. But if you're not back by dinner, I'm coming to find you."
I spend the next few hours trying to make my body work again. Every movement hurts in ways I didn't know were possible. My bones ache like they're bruised from the inside. My muscles feel torn and reknitted wrong. Even my skin feels sensitive, like the memory of fur bursting through it is still fresh.
By the time I make my way to Julian's office, I'm moving almost normally but everything still hurts. I knock on his door at exactly three and wait, my heart pounding harder than it should be.
"Enter."
His voice sounds different. Strained. I push the door open and step inside.
Julian is standing at the window looking out over the grounds with his back to me. He doesn't turn when I enter. Just stands there with his hands clasped behind his back and his shoulders rigid with tension.
"Close the door."
I close it and the click of the latch feels louder than it should. The silence that follows is heavy enough to make it hard to breathe.
"I felt something last night." His voice is quiet, measured, but I can hear something underneath it. "Around two in the morning. A pull. Like something was calling to me even though I couldn't identify what. It woke me up and I couldn't get back to sleep."
My shift. He felt my shift even though we don't have a bond yet. The realization sends a spike of fear and something else through me.
"What happened, Nova?"
The question is simple but loaded. He's asking me to tell him something he clearly already suspects but doesn't want to be true.
"I shifted. For the first time."
He goes still. I can see his shoulders tense even though his back is to me. "When?"
"Last night. Around two."
"That's what I felt." He says it more to himself than to me. "Your first shift and I felt it from here." Finally he turns around and the expression on his face makes my chest tight. There's fear there but also something that looks like wonder mixed with desperation. "Are you alright? First shifts are dangerous. Especially that late. You should have had pack support."
"I didn't exactly plan it."
"Who helped you? Who was there?"
This is the part where I have to decide how much to tell him. "Three males found me in the forest after the shift. They protected me."
His jaw tightens. "Protected you from what?"
"A Council enforcer showed up. Chase Valemont. He saw me with them but couldn't confirm anything."
I watch the fear intensify on his face. "What was there to confirm?"
This is it. The moment where I tell him what I am and watch him decide if I'm worth the risk. I take a breath because once I say this, there's no taking it back.
"Julian, my wolf is silver."
The silence that follows is deafening. He just stares at me like he's waiting for me to tell him I'm joking. When I don't, when he realizes I'm completely serious, something breaks in his expression.
"Silver." He says it like he's testing the word. "Silverpelt wolves are extinct. The Council hunted them all down a generation ago."
"Apparently they missed one."
"Nova." He crosses the room in three strides until he's standing right in front of me. "Do you understand what thismeans? If the Council confirms what you are, they won't just question you. They'll kill you."
